Kalamazoo Champion Kypson Joins Texas A&M for Spring Season; Elbaba, Boyden Win USTA National Indoor Titles in New York; Eubanks Reaches Los Angeles Futures Semis; Recaps of 18s Winter Nationals

The Tennis Recruiting Network's top-ranked boy in the Class of 2018, Kalamazoo 18s champion Patrick Kypson, will be joining the Texas A&M team this month, according to the school's release today.  North Carolina resident Kypson, who was undecided on whether he would turn pro or attend college as recently as this fall, says in the release:

"I am excited to join the Texas A&M team and further develop my tennis abilities," Kypson said. "I think Aggieland is the best place for me to train especially with the great coaching staff in place in College Station. I am looking forward to starting the spring season next weekend at Arizona State and am really looking to playing with the guys on the team like Arthur Rinderknech, AJ Catanzariti, Jordi Arconada and Juan Carlos Aguilar."

The Aggies, currently No. 7 in the ITA rankings, begin their dual match season on January 14 at Arizona State.

Every year I am behind in my update of the USTA Open National Indoors, held the week after Christmas at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York, but today is a good day to recognize the winners.  University of North Carolina junior Blaine Boyden won the men's singles title, with the No. 3 seed defeating No. 21 seed Justin Natale 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-5 in the final.  Former University of Virginia All-American Julia Elbaba won the women's singles title, with the top seed beating North Carolina sophomore Alexa Graham, the No. 2 seed, 6-4, 6-0 in the final.  No. 8 seeds Jack Boling and Abhijeet Joshi won the men's doubles championship 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 over No. 2 seed Daniel Grunberger and Ethan Nittolo and the women's doubles title went to No. 3 seeds Fatima Bizhukova and Nadejda Maslova, who defeated No. 1 seeds Darya Ivanova and Shelby Talcott  6-3, 6-4 in the final.  The mixed doubles gold balls were won by No. 6 seeds Ivanova and Michal Motyka, who beat No. 3 seeds Anna Brylin and Tyler Hoffman 6-4, 6-2.

Complete draws can be found at the TennisLink site.

The semifinals are set at the $25,000 Futures in Los Angeles, with No. 5 seed Christopher Eubanks the sole American still in the running for the title.  Eubanks took out top seed Alex Sarkissian 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-3 in today's quarterfinals and will face No. 6 seed Kaichi Uchida of Japan next.  The other semifinal will feature former UCLA Bruin Karue Sell of Brazil, a qualifier, and No. 7 seed Jan Satral of the Czech Republic. Sell beat wild card Alex Rybakov 6-4, 6-3 and Satral downed Alex Lebedev 6-3, 6-1.

Sell and UCLA senior Martin Redlicki won the doubles title, with the unseeded pair topping No. 1 seeds Hans Hach Verdugo of Mexico and Luke Bambridge of Great Britain 6-4, 6-3.

The Tennis Recruiting Network has begun its coverage of the USTA Winter Nationals, with recaps of the 18s finals today.  The article on Christian Alshon's title is here; the article on Fiona Crawley's title is here.  Recaps of the other divisions will begin on Monday and continue through Wednesday.